Chapter Text
Martín paced around the room, waving his hands as if trying to chase away the absurdity that had settled in the air.
"I don't believe this!" he exclaimed for the third time. The heat had made the back of his neck sweat, and his shirt clung to his spine. "Do you hear yourself? Do you actually hear yourself?"
Andrés sat on the windowsill with his legs stretched out, looking offensively calm. Outside, the early evening melted away; the windows glowed with a soft amber light. Warm air drifted in, carrying the scent of asphalt still warm after the rain.
"I already told you, it's a workable idea," he repeated with the same patience, as if his plans always sounded impossible until they worked.
Martín stopped and jabbed a finger into Andrés' chest.
"You forgot one important detail." He spoke as though explaining to a child that fire was hot. "A very important detail. This is an ultra-tight-knit community. They've known each other since they learned to use a spoon. Teams don't change. Participants don't change. They pass the cars down like family heirlooms, and the names along with them. If someone dies, their kids show up, and everyone remembers them from diaper age. And you…" Martín made a sweeping gesture, "I don't recall you attending a single vintage rally. Or being a third-generation classic car collector."
Andrés' expression didn't change. He only tilted his head slightly — that familiar gesture that meant the idea had already settled deeper in his mind than Martín realized.
"We don't need to be their children or old pals," he said calmly. "We'll pretend to be wealthy layabouts. Bought a vintage car out of boredom. Repainted it. Patched it up. Decided we wanted a taste of adventure."
"And where exactly were you planning to buy it?!" Martín collapsed onto the sofa like a man who had survived two wars and one of Andrés' plans. The springs groaned in sympathy. "Do you understand this isn't ‘walk to the market and pick one up'? The fact that you once drove a Citroën DS from the seventies does not make you an expert. We need a car from the fifties. Or the thirties. In working condition!" He began counting on his fingers. "There are few. Very few."
Andrés stayed silent. His gaze moved slowly — across the wall, the battered suitcase, the scattered maps on the table. His mind was already elsewhere, inside the machinery of the plan.
"And we need a mechanic," Martín continued, winding himself up again. "And not just any mechanic — one of those family madmen who sleep in the garage next to their Alfa Romeos. And they all know everyone, too. Everyone. We can't just grab some random João off the street and claim he's been with us twenty years. He won't last twenty minutes with you! And then there's preparation — documents, registration, transport..."
He stopped short.
Andrés wasn't staring past him anymore. He was staring right at him — directly, intensely. And it was clear he had decided something. Something big.
"You're not listening to me…" Martín pushed himself up on his elbows.
"No," Andrés slid down from the windowsill. "I'm just calculating."
"Calculating what?"
Andrés smiled in that familiar way — the one that always gave Martín a bad feeling.
"How much time we'll need to pull this off… and something else."
He said something else far too calmly.
Far too familiarly.
Martín covered his face with a hand.
"Oh God. Here we go again."
A few days had passed, and the Argentinian had already managed to forget about Andrés' sudden racing hyperfixation. Or at least he decided Andrés must have already switched to whatever his next strange idea was. Andrés had a talent for getting obsessed with things — brightly, fiercely, to the point of fanaticism — but just as quickly letting them go.
So when, that morning, Andrés simply walked up, grabbed him by the elbow, and said:
"You're going to like this."
"Mmh? Like what?" Martín barely had time to wipe the last traces of sleep off his face.
But Andrés was already pulling him through the house — through the kitchen, past the abandoned coffee mugs on the table, down the hallway, down the stairs, out to the backyard — like a child who had found a treasure and couldn't bear another second without showing it off.
The door creaked open, letting out the cold air and the smell of damp soil. Martín opened his mouth, and froze.
A truck stood in the yard, its tailgate down. And on its platform — that.
The sunlight clung to the chrome lines, slid over the curved shapes, caught droplets of water from a recent wash. The metal gleamed as if the car had just been pulled from another era.
His breath hitched.
An Aston Martin DB3.
A living legend. A car he had only ever seen on the pages of old magazines or in museum photographs. That silhouette — the long hood, the low profile, the strict, regal grille line. And the smell… he caught it instantly: a mixture of grease, old gasoline, and metal that had survived an age.
God. His childhood dream.
Martín ran his tongue across his lips automatically, as if checking that he wasn't dreaming.
Andrés stood beside him, hands in his pockets, obscenely pleased with himself.
"What do you think?" he asked almost casually, though his eyes gleamed. "I knew you'd appreciate it."
Martín tried to find words, but what came out was only:
"It's… real. It's real? Does it run? How did you even?.." He was almost stuttering, and that infuriated him even more.
To hide his embarrassment, he muttered:
"Why not a DB5?" he tried to joke, turning to Andrés. "I thought you were a Bond fan."
Andrés took a step closer. Then another. He came close enough that Martín felt his breath near his ear — a habit of Andrés', always speaking just a little too close, just enough to throw him off balance.
"Oh, my dear friend…" he began in that characteristic tone of his soft, lazy, almost feline. "This is exactly how it should be. In the books, it was the DB3."
He said it as if he personally knew Ian Fleming.
"And besides…" he continued, stretching the words with a slow Spanish softness, "it's still an Aston Martin." He dragged out the last two words, leaning in even closer.
"Ahem." Someone cleared their throat awkwardly to the side. They both turned at once.
The guy who had unloaded the car stood there wiping sweat off his forehead, clearly unsure where to look. He seemed to think he had accidentally walked into… something far too intimate.
"Uh…" he mumbled, "I need a signature… here…"
Martín snorted; Andrés smiled.
With a quick, almost predatory motion, Andrés snatched the folder from the guy's hands. He always did that as if grabbing the initiative straight from the air.
"Where do I sign?" he asked without even glancing at the courier.
"H–here. And here. And… here too," the guy stammered, shifting from foot to foot, as if afraid to even look directly at the car.
Andrés took the pen, clicked it sharply — the guy flinched — and signed with that confident, sweeping signature of his. He always signed like he was sealing another successful plan, already calculated ten steps ahead.
"Done." Andrés snapped the folder shut and shoved it back into the guy's hands. "You did excellent work today."
The word work sounded deliberately respectful, almost old-fashioned as if the man wasn't a truck driver but an artisan handing over a masterpiece.
"Th–thanks… uh… yeah…" the guy completely lost the thread.
Andrés turned him by the elbow, gently but firmly directing him toward the yard gate. It was polite, but impossible to argue with.
"We'll take it from here. Drive down the narrow alley — it's easier. And close the gate behind you."
The guy nodded so fast he nearly stumbled. A second later he slammed the truck door, the engine sputtered, roared, and the vehicle crawled out onto the street. When the gate closed behind him, the yard fell silent.
Silent, except for the presence of the Aston Martin DB3.
Andrés turned to the Argentinian as if the entire performance had been staged exclusively for his reaction. But Martín wasn't looking at Andrés.
He was looking at the car.
He stood completely still, hands at his sides, shoulders slightly tense — like a man who had suddenly been given something unbelievably precious and was afraid to approach it without permission.
Andrés had been right. Damn him.
Martín liked what he saw in their backyard.
And not just liked.
There was a feeling in his chest he hadn't experienced in years: excitement mixed with a small, aching pinch — the kind you feel when facing a dream you once gave up on.
It was a sports car from the old world, exactly like the one they had discussed days ago — except not "like." Better. Real.
Martín had dreamed about cars like this as a kid. Lying on the floor, staring at magazine photos of gray-haired British relics, imagining he'd grow up and work on them — restore them, assemble them, bring metal back to life.
And then…
Well, then he probably realized it was just an expensive toy — too costly to maintain, too attention-drawing.
And attention was something he had avoided all his life. Andrés' Citroën DS already drew more than enough. And he definitely couldn't risk drawing attention when Andrés could drag him into an adventure out of thin air.
And running from the police and leaving a car like this behind would be a sin of the highest order.
But all that existed later, in logic. In common sense.
Right now, logic was silent.
Right now, he was looking at his childhood dream shining in their backyard, as if asking him:
So, Martín. Do you still know how to want things?
Andrés stepped closer — softly, within the range of breath, not touching, but present like a warm magnet.
"Tell me you like it," he said quietly.
And Martín, without taking his eyes off the car, answered almost soundlessly:
"I like it… too much."